New Hospital Robot Tackles Superbugs

New Hospital Robot Tackles Superbugs

New robotic cleaning devices are helping to keep patients at Johns Hopkins Hospital safer from superbugs.

MRSA and clostridium difficile are some of the most well-known types of superbugs that can thrive in hospital settings.

"Superbugs are actually what we would medically consider organisms or bugs that are resistant to multiple antibiotics," epidemiologist Dr. Trish Perl said.

At Hopkins, when a patient with one of those bugs leaves, the room is cleaned like any other, but then the Bioquell Q10 system is brought in to disinfect the entire room in two steps. First, a technician has to seal off any vents, windows and doors in the room, and then the first machine goes to work.

"It saturates the area with the hydrogen peroxide and, at that point, it will microcondensate on all the surfaces in the room," said technician Mike Duclos.